


I look at you like I look at flowers

by DeyaAmaya



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26546161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeyaAmaya/pseuds/DeyaAmaya
Summary: "You got me flowers," Neil says, noticing the red and white chrysanthemums nestled in between his marigolds."Slander," Andrew says flatly. "I did no such thing. You can't prove it."Or, a little glimpse in the life of two witches, some flowers, and a cake.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 5
Kudos: 158
Collections: AFTG Exchange Fall 2020





	I look at you like I look at flowers

**Author's Note:**

> My (probably a bit late) gift for vintage-morning-wine for the aftg fall exchange 2020! I mixed and matched the prompts andreil, witch au, one of them using glasses, softness. As you wished, I tried keeping it nsfw free. I hope a little kiss wouldn’t be the dealbreaker. I hope you like what I whipped up! 
> 
> Many, many thanks to Madison for coming to my rescue with plotting, idea generation, being the awesome beta she is and generally keeping my sanity intact. Thanks also to Shama for the quick feedback and love <3

_I look at you like I look at flowers_

"Neil? Are you sure you don’t want to-"

"Yes, Kevin!" Neil snaps. "I'm sure I don’t want to use magic for this. I'm baking a totally magic-free cake for Andrew. I don’t want to cheat."

He's been saying that for the past few hours, but right now his conviction is shaky at best. 

"Keep talking," he prompts Kevin, whose sigh is loud even through the tinny speaker of Neil's laptop. 

"You've been at it forever. When did Andrew say he's arriving?"

"He'll be at the airport at 8, then he'll portal in." 

Neil turned to fetch a knife just in time to see Kevin's eyebrows hit his hairline.

"Portal in- your flat?"

"Yes, of course my flat. Outside isn’t safe for us, Kevin. Don’t be stupid. Not all of us are celebrity witches clamoring for equal rights."

"Right," Kevin says after a brief pause, perhaps thinking of that time when Neil got drunk and told him about his messy past. After years of running from witch hunters, he finally had a home. A little flat above a slightly bigger flower shop he ran. Maybe calling it home was a stretch. He'd painted the kitchen cabinets yellow, added marigolds in the window boxes to make the space seem cheerful, homely. It never worked. It never felt like home.

Neil shakes off his reverie and looks at the pitiful mess in the cake tin. Pumpkin spice cake. What a joke. It didn’t rise at all, and the middle had caved in. There's a reason why he's a flower witch and not a sugar witch. 

"He's gonna hate it. He's gonna hate me," Neil mutters. 

Kevin hears. 

"Neil, Neil. Look at me. Come on, man."

Neil does, shoulders up around his ears, ready for a lecture.

"Neil, he loves you."

Neil blinks at the sincerity in Kevin's voice. "I know," he answers.

"He tell you that? Or did you just figure it out like I did?"

A small smile pulls at Neil's lips, "He told me." Just once, but that's enough for a lifetime.

"See, he told you. I've never heard him even say the word 'like', let alone 'love'. When he likes something he says 'I don’t hate it'... Neil. My point is, he's not gonna hate your cake. He's not gonna hate you. I bet he's just as anxious to meet you."

That really was the wrong thing to say. Neil's anxiety comes back full force. 

"Kevin, he's never seen what I look like. What if-" he breaks off, fingers coming up to cover his face. His scars…from when he lost control… and when he was being hunted… all these scars... how could Andrew even look at him like this?

"No, Neil! He wouldn’t care about that, trust me!"

Neil swallows hard, trying to keep himself from throwing up. "What should I do with this junk?" he asks, indicating the cake. 

"Uh," Kevin sounds doubtful. "He likes chocolate. So, ganache? And then write something?"

In the end, Neil douses it in chocolate ganache and writes, "Welcome Home Andrew". He puts it in the fridge before he can change his mind and just chuck it away. He bids farewell to Kevin and turns off Skype. Then, he lets himself break down and cry. 

* * *

Neil wakes up with a swollen face and a steady headache behind his eyes that indicates he'll need to wear his glasses today of all days. He curses aloud, then goes about washing up for the day. It takes a while to figure out where his glasses were hiding.

There's a lot of sunshine filtering in from the windows lining the hallway to his kitchen. Did he oversleep? 

Neil is at the archway of his kitchen, absentmindedly twisting his hair into a bun when he realizes he's not alone in the house. He looks up, green fire crackling at his fingertips.

Across the kitchen island, a pair of hazel eyes meet his. 

This isn’t what Neil was expecting.

Well, this wasn’t exactly what Neil was expecting, really. 

He was expecting platinum blond hair, but not the urge to run his hands through the curls. He was expecting freckles, not this constellation across a slightly crooked nose, one speck at the curve of a plush lower lip, one right below an eye. And, gods, the eyes.

 _Hazel_. Neil expected hazel. He hadn't expected the world to reset at the sight of those eyes, now slowly dilating as they took in Neil.

"Andrew," he says, voice a sleepy rasp.

Andrew watches him with travel worn eyes for a while. "Neil," he says at last. Neil wants to close his eyes against the deep baritone. They spoke over skype before, but hearing that voice in person was inexplicably consuming.

But not so consuming that he doesn’t notice the plastic cake knife in Andrew's hand.

"Wait," he says, suddenly horrified. "The cake… It's… Don't eat it! I wanted to do it without magic - without cheating - but it’s so bad- "

"It has my name on it," Andrew points out, cutting a neat wedge out of Neil's shitty cake. "I'll eat it, you can't stop me," he tells Neil. And then, he eats the whole wedge in the blink of an eye. 

Neil waits for something. A culmination. Something drastic. A disgusted retort. Disappointment. A frown. He's thrown when Andrew just nods at him.

"Neil," he starts, voice softer. "Magic isn’t cheating. It's part of who you are. It's that braid in your hair. It's those marigolds in that window box. It's just… it’s you. The magic, it’s you. " 

Oh no. Neil's eyes are filling up with tears again. He can't look away from Andrew. He looks like a dream in Neil's yellow kitchen, all black clothes and tousled hair and he's - oh, he's wearing the key on a chain around his neck. The key that Neil sent him months ago in a fit of sentimentality. It was supposed to work as a tether for the portal, also something that would let him breach Neil's wards safely, but Andrew wears it like an ornament, like it’s something precious.

"Don’t look at me like that," Andrew glares, petulant. 

"Like what," Neil says breathlessly, not looking away. 

Andrew is in his space in an instance, his palms on Neil's waist, crowding him against the fridge. Despite his snappy words, his eyes are impossibly soft, darting down to Neil's lips and up to his eyes again.

"Yes," Neil whispers, only beginning to understand.

The kiss might be unexpected, but it feels so familiar. Andrew is gentle, insistent, and very good at this. Neil feels like sunshine is pouring into him from all directions.

His glasses must be digging into Andrew's face. He reaches up to take them off, but Andrew stops him.

"Keep those on," he tells Neil, and then goes right back to kissing his thoughts away. 

Some minutes, or hours later, Andrew pulls away slightly only to wrap his arms fully around Neil and hide a yawn in the curve of his neck. 

"You got me flowers," Neil says, noticing the red and white chrysanthemums nestled in between his marigolds.

"Slander," Andrew says flatly. "I did no such thing. You can't prove it." 

Neil laughs and wraps his arms around Andrew's shoulders. The fall sunshine is clear and bright on his flowers. 

Finally, finally, his heart settles like dust motes in a beam of sunlight. 

_Finally, he's home_.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on tumblr! I'm andreil-minyasten.


End file.
